House of Lords committee on citizenship and civic engagement

The report highlights the areas in which the UK is currently successful in promoting a positive ‘civic journey’ and making a series of recommendations for how it might improve.

The key recommendations are obviously focused on the theme of citizenship and include:

The government must re-prioritise citizenship as a subject taught in schools, creating a statutory entitlement to citizenship education from primary to the end of secondary education, and set a target which will allow every secondary school to have at least one trained teacher.

The unemployed should be encouraged to volunteer by having their social security status clarified, and more must be done to recognise and reward outstanding contributions made by volunteering.

The voter registration process must be improved, in particular by adopting the scheme which allows voter registration to take place at the same time as registration at universities, further education colleges and, ultimately, perhaps schools.

But there are also a number of recommendations that are directly relevant and of interest to the voluntary sector. For example:

The section on integration recognises there is a role for civil society organisations, and recommends local authorities prioritise funding of arts, sports, civil society orgs that work across communities. There’s a recommendation around focusing on areas with low social capital, including funding local voluntary organisations. There’s also a recommendation on government seeking views of communities feeling disregarded when they consult.

The report notes the concern over lack of diversity in trusteeship, and has a recommendation to create a voluntary code of conduct to increase diversity among trustees (although don’t forget that the new Charity Governance Code already has a section on diversity).

A number of recommendations are aimed at ensuring that the National Citizens Service (NCS) is part of creating a lifelong habit of social action. So NCS should work with government, the voluntary sector, and schools to ensure there are opportunities to do this. The committee also argues that NCS should be expected to build partnerships with the voluntary sector, and work with other similar organisations to establish benchmarks for effectiveness. There are also a number of recommendations around ensuring citizenship is part of the scheme.

Unsurprisingly, there is a recommendation to government that it should implement the changes set out in Lord Hodgson’s review of the non-party campaigning rules in the Lobbying Act.

Various recommendations are intended to make it easier for people to volunteer, such as:

improving knowledge of Job Centre staff on volunteering

the creation of an Access to Volunteering scheme

sending information about volunteering to those reaching pensionable age.

Charity Commission safeguarding taskforce

The establishment of a safeguarding taskforce was among the suite of measures announced earlier this year by the Charity Commission in response to the revelations about safeguarding failures.

The stated role of this taskforce is:

to deal with the increased volume of safeguarding serious incident reports

to undertake proactive work to ensure prompt and full reporting of serious safeguarding incidents, and give advice to charities reporting safeguarding incidents on appropriate actions

to undertake a ‘deep dive’ of existing serious incident reporting records to ensure any gaps in full and frank disclosure are identified and undertake any necessary follow up actions.

This month, the Commission provided an update on the work of the taskforce showing the considerably higher numbers of reports that it is dealing with, in addition to reviewing historical cases.

However, Civil Society Media reports that several witnesses have given evidence to the international development committee in parliament that the Charity Commission does not have the resources to regulate safeguarding issues in the international aid sector.

Charity trustees welcome pack

It provides essential information to help trustees understand governance basics, financial filing requirements and how the Charity Commission can offer support. It also suggests practical steps that can be taken to carry out trustee duties effectively.

The pack will be emailed to all new trustees who register their email address with the Commission.

Like this? Read more

Elizabeth is head of policy and public services at NCVO. She has been part of the policy team since 2008, as the expert on charity law and regulation. Her policy interests also include charity campaigning, the sector’s independence, transparency, and accountability.